Although numerous factors contribute to the success of a business, one important factor that I would like to point out is trust. Think of the brands that you buy products and services from – you must trust something from those brands, whether it’s the quality of the products or services, or the brand itself, a name that has built its reputation over the years.
Trust, however, needs to be built within and outside of an organization, and technology can help your organization do that. So, how do you build trust with your employees and customers as a business?
The 3 essential elements of trust in business
Three talking points revolving around trust that need to be discussed are transparency, relationship, and reputation.
Transparency
With hot topics and current events that are instantaneously reachable through technology, you can see how the public wants to hear companies’ take on these issues that affect inside and outside of the companies. This means transparency in communication that businesses need to partake toward their employees and their customers. For example, when COVID-19 first hit in 2020, you see how companies that you trust sent out formal communication to their customers and their employees about how they would handle the pandemic, such as COVID-19 safety measures (social distancing, mask requirements, etc.) and changes to the work environment (remote/hybrid work, COVID-19 sick policy, etc.).
Relationship
Businesses need to establish that their relationship with their customers and their employees is a “relationship” or partnership. This means that the business should care about the needs and opinions of the people with whom they’re in communication, just in the same manner you have a relationship with your friends, partner, family, and co-workers. Businesses can show that it is a relationship by communicating how they hear about the employees’ and customers’ needs and opinions and will make changes accordingly.
Reputation
The reputation of your business is a huge part of what drives its success, but it isn’t something you can create overnight. Businesses want a positive reputation that typically requires a substantial amount of time. For example, 20 years of IT experience serving local clients or hundreds of 5-star reviews for excellent customer service on Google Reviews. With this kind of reputation established, customers know that they can trust the business because their reputation proves that the business knows what they’re doing. In addition, this is also applicable within the business where the business can have a reputation for being “Best Place to Work” for some number of years where both current and future employees feel that they can trust their employer as a business.
A lot of businesses don’t prioritize trust in and outside of their organizations, and they may only realize it when it’s too late. Since you can build trust, you can also break trust, and when you break trust, it takes more effort and time to gain that trust back, or in some cases, it can even feel irreparable.
A technology solutions provider like I.T. Responsive can help businesses like yours to help build trust through technology. Contact us here on how our IT services can help.